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Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year! I have been enjoying my visit with Morgan this week and I have missed posting on Brenda's Holiday Bliss Meme for a couple of days. This being the very last day for the Holiday Bliss and the last day of the year I wanted to make sure I got a post written.

The year 2010 brought a lot of changes to our home. My son had moved back home last Dec. and then he got married in May. He and his wife live in our town so I get to see them quite often. Shelby has been a wonderful addition to our family. My oldest daughter Morgan moved to CO in Aug. 3 1/2 hours doesn't seem very far until it is between you and someone you miss. Our house is pretty quiet now with only 3 girls.

We will be ringing in the new year with our friends from church. We will be playing games and I am sure there will be tons of goodies to eat. Hope you all enjoy your evening as much as I know I will.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Usually I take my Christmas tree and decorations down the day after Christmas this year I decided to leave it up until after the first of the year. We are waiting for my oldest daughter Morgan to get here today from CO, she went to CA for Christmas & we are having company over the New Year weekend also.

Since we are still on a holiday from school and my husband is home from work today I went out to run some errands and get groceries by myself. When I got home my daughters had made cookies. They did a good job mixing them, but they couldn't figure out why the first batch in the oven was taking so long. The oven wasn't on, they had preheated it because it felt warm. I am assuming that when they set the timer they accidentally hit the cancel button and turned the oven off. We are now enjoying some wonderful cookies.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

This morning there was a train derailment near McGrew, Nebraska. Last count we heard is that there was 59 cars on the ground. The Union Pacific always removes the crew from a wrecked train so my husband had to relieve them and move the locomotives away from the wreckage.

I fixed the girls Santa Claus pancakes this morning for breakfast & they loved them. I saw these on another blog during the holiday bliss, but I can't remember whose.

Yesterday was Michael's 20th birthday. His wife Shelby wanted to have a surprise party for him. She took him out and the girls and I decorated their house. We all enjoyed his favorite meal, roast and chocolate cheesecake for dessert and then we played games.

Since he was born on the 23rd we went home from the hospital on Christmas day. That was the best Christmas present I have ever had.﻿

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Every year the kids pick out a new ornament. We always have so much fun looking at ornaments at every store.

Delaney chose Rudolph and Clarice.

Amber chose a white fox.

While we were shopping Alaina really liked 3 ornaments, a pig, a sheep and a chicken. I have no idea why, there is nothing Christmassy about them. She had trouble deciding and finally chose the pig. Those were the only ones that were at the store, so she said she was going to put them in the back of the other ornaments just in case she could pick another one a different day. Later that week she was shopping with her dad and he was going to let her pick one also, but she couldn't find where she hid them & thought someone else bought them. Her birthday was on the 15th so while I was shopping for her birthday presents I bought the other 2 for her. She was so excited.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

One thing I really love doing this time of year is to go Christmas Caroling. Every year a bunch of us from church get together to have a soup supper and then bundle up and go out in the cold to bless some lucky North Platte residents with our fine singing. OK, our singing may not be that good but at least we give the people a treat and a craft. This year my friend made banana bread and the girls and I made a magazine tree decoration.

I hope we bring a little bit of Holiday Bliss to the people we sing to because we have so much fun.

These are the trees that we made to deliver while we caroled. And here are a few pictures of the carolers in action.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Every year we have a Christmas Party with the ladies at church. This year we ate homemade pizza and yummy desserts to go along with our fun and fellowship.

A big THANK YOU to my friend Marcia for always planning this for us.

For one of the games this year everyone brought an ornament that represented them. They were all hung on a little Christmas tree and we had to guess who brought what ornament. I won the game and got a lovely smelling candle. (It really helps in games like this when you have 3 girls and a daughter-in-law playing the game).

The next game we played we all chose a present and made two lines. We placed our present behind us on the floor and held onto the wrist of person beside us. Both teams had a bag of bows and the person on the end grabbed a bow and passed it down the line until it reached the other end. That person had to take the back off of the bow and place it on a package. The first team to stick all their bows on won the game. Then we traded presents with the person across from us. (Marcia never lets us keep the present we pick out).

Sunday, December 19, 2010

My kids don't believe there is a Santa, but they still like to get their pictures taken with him. It is just one of those things we do at Christmas. We were going to the Mall to pay $8 to see Santa and use our own camera for the pictures when we saw a guy standing by the stoplight with a sign that read Free Pictures with Santaat the Rent A Center. We have never been in the Rent A Center because I don't think I would ever rent furniture, but we went yesterday and got our free pictures. I love a bargain.

I know it's a little late in the day to be posting about our Holiday Bliss today, but I want to be able to say I posted every day this month.

Has everyone downloaded their FREE copy of TOS Holiday Digital Supplement. This is not just for homeschoolers there are so many good holiday ideas. And did I mention I have some recipes published in there also!

Do your kids dream of outer space, flying in a spaceship, building their own planet, and solving missions? Then you may want to try My Tiny Planets. My kids have been playing and they love it.

My Tiny Planets website describes itself as a new online community and virtual world based on science and space exploration that combines social elements and gaming to create an engaging space exploration experience.

On My Tiny Planets the cadets receive a space name, pick a spaceship and build their own planet while solving missions with Bing and Bong. While the cadets are playing games they earn stars which they can use to buy items for their ship and planet. The main game is free but you may also purchase keys to unlock more features for your spaceship & planet or to watch videos and read books. The Tiny Planets Fun, Books, TV, Learning, and Labs sections offer puzzles, coloring sheets, worksheets to print, read books, watch videos, and test the new games and let them know what you think.

My kids were excited to receive their cadet names: Loony Wanderer, Secret Kitten, and Steam Crush. Once they realized they could see and talk to each other they called and invited some of their friends to get online and play also. That way they could play together without being together. Loony Wanderer, age 9 and Secret Kitten, age 8 really liked playing the mini games and flying around looking for other cadets to invite to be their friends. Steam Crush, age 6, said her favorite part of My Tiny Planets are the videos.

First you set up a parent account where you can see all of your cadet accounts in one place. You may also purchase keys from here:

10 keys for $1.95

25 keys for $3.95

85 keys for $9.95

250 keys for $25.95

600 keys for $49.95

Then each kid will set up their own cadet account and they are given a space name. If you do not like the name given you can choose another one. During the game you can meet up with other cadets and see their space names. The cadets can talk to each other only by choosing a phrase from the bubble above them. There is no actual online talking. You can invite others to follow you to your planet, go shopping together or other chit chatty phrases. The books and the videos take the cadets on learning adventures with Bing and Bong. One book that Loony Wanderer read took Bing and Bong to the Planet of Stuff via their spaceship couch, once they were there they learn about halves and how each half of an item can be put together to make a whole. Secret Kitten watched Bing and Bong learn how to read a recipe while making a cake. In one video Steam Crush watched, Bing and Bong went to a different planet and Bing was carried away by a kite and Bong had to save him. Some of the other books and videos talk about mixing colors, tools, and patience.

I feel this game is fun for everyone, but the topics of the worksheets, books and videos are very elementary in their content.

Several other TOS Crew members reviewed this game, you can hop over TOS Crew Blog and see what they thought about it.

As a member of the TOS Crew we were given our free accounts to My Tiny Planets along with access to all the paid items.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

While the girls were decorating the gingerbread houses for our neighbors I decided to decorate sugar cubes for our ladies Christmas party. They turn out so cute and I really enjoy making these. Maybe this will be a new tradition for us.

The first time I decorated sugar cubes was for my son's wedding in May. I used their initials for the center and hand painted them in silver and trimmed the edges with the wedding colors.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Today our holiday bliss is for Alaina. The youngest in our family turns 6 today. She wanted her dad and her brother at her birthday party, they were both off of work yesterday, so we celebrated a day early. My husband always gets our daughters flowers on their birthday, this year it included a singing balloon.

﻿Our lunch was still in the oven, so we opened gifts first.

She wanted to have chicken potpies for lunch. She likes them made in ramikans﻿, so everyone had their own potpie.

She loves silly string and since it was close to 50° outside we all went out to play.

She wanted everyone to race and then we played musical chairs.

Everyone knows when you turn 6 you can do everything yourself.

She did need help from big brother to get the child safety lighter on.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

If you read yesterday's post you know we decorated gingerbread houses with some friends from church. Well my girls decided they wanted to make one for our neighbors. So we decorated more gingerbread houses.

Amber decorated 2, one for her dad and one for the kids next door.

Delaney decorated 2, one for her sister-in-law Shelby and one for the neighbors. This one went to the neighbors.

Alaina also decorated 2, this one for the neighbors and one with M&M's all over it for her big brother because he loves them.

This is Josiah the neighbor boy, he was watching the girls as they walked up to the door.

Here are our neighbors!

I think they liked them!! Doesn't the little boys smile match the one my daughter put on his roof.